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Abstract:

An innovation signature useful in placing an individual within an
organization to optimally support creativity and innovation by that
individual is developed from information regarding innovative behavior of
an individual, a record of motivational rewards and information regarding
the current and historical interests, preferably derived from a survey
and reward history of an individual. The innovation signature is refined
by comparing the innovation signature with a definition of desired
innovation activity, alteration of motivational drivers and feedback of
the altered motivational drivers to the record of motivational rewards.

Claims:

1. An innovation signature management system comprisingmeans for
collecting information representing innovation activity and reward and
survey records for an individual to form an innovation profile,means for
developing an innovation signature for said individual from said
information representing innovation activity,a comparator for comparing
said innovation signature with a definition of desired innovation
activity,a memory for storing motivational driver information and changes
made to motivational driver information responsive to an output of said
comparator, anda feedback path for said motivational driver information
to said reward and survey records for said individual.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said innovation activity and
reward and survey records for an individual comprise a combination of at
least two of innovative performance, current interests, historical
interests, reward preferences, reward history and organizational
citizenship.

3. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein said current interests, said
historical interests and said reward preferences are derived through at
least one survey.

4. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein a portion of said information
representing innovation activity is derived through menu selections.

5. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein a portion of said information
representing innovation activity is derived through a diagnostic survey.

6. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein said innovation signature
comprises information regarding motivational preferences, said innovation
profile and a history of said motivational preferences and profile.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein said innovation signature
comprises information regarding motivational preferences, said innovation
profile and a history of said motivational preferences and profile.

8. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein a portion of said information
representing innovation activity is derived through menu selections.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein a portion of said information
representing innovation activity is derived through a diagnostic survey.

10. A method of developing an managing an innovation signature comprising
steps ofcollecting information in regard to innovative behavior of an
individual,surveying said individual in regard to current and historical
interests and reward preferences,storing records of information obtained
in said collecting and surveying steps,developing an innovation signature
based on information provided by said collecting, surveying and storing
steps,comparing said innovation signature with a definition of desired
innovation activity,altering and storing motivational drivers in response
to said comparing step, andrefining said innovation signature based on
feedback of motivational drivers altered and stored in said altering and
storing step.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein said information collected
in said collecting step forms an innovative activity profile.

12. The method as recited in claim 11, wherein said innovation profile
includes two or more of a contribution profile, contribution performance,
an innovation profile, and activity profile and organizational
citizenship.

Description:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001]This application claims priority of U.S. Provisional Patent
Application 60/574,943, filed May 28, 2004, which is hereby fully
incorporated by reference. This application is also related to U.S.
patent application Ser. Nos. 10/______, 10/______ and 10/______ (Attorney
Docket Numbers YOR920040162US1, YOR920040163US1, and YOR920040165US1,
respectively) which are filed concurrently herewith and assigned to the
assignee of the present invention and also fully incorporated by
reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002]1. Field of the Invention

[0003]The present invention generally relates to systems and techniques
for managing innovation within a business, organization or enterprise and
in particular systems and techniques for using the human and
infrastructural resources thereof to optimize the management of novel
ideas, needs and opportunities.

[0004]2. Description of the Prior Art

[0005]Prior art systems offer products that help a company take in new
ideas, enable review of and collaboration on these ideas, and track the
progress of these ideas through the company from inception to development
to implementation. It is also often desirable to track the contributions
of various individuals for both legal documentation and employee
recognition purposes. Such employee recognition and a substantially
static incentive policy have been used to motivate the creation and
development of ideas but may not optimally support the management of all
factors involved for optimal utilization of knowledge and creative talent
resources underlying the development of innovation within a business,
organization or enterprise (e.g. company, university, non-profit entity
or the like).

[0006]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0187706 to Buchmiller et
al. describes an enterprise-wide knowledge management system, which
includes an engine portal that can link each user to any needed
expertise, throughout an enterprise, in a consistent manner, thereby
freeing enterprise experts to pursue activities having a potentially
higher value-added to enterprises of the company, in general, and more
consistent with the specific expertise of individual experts. The entire
innovation life cycle is made accessible to all employees, from the
initial demand for innovation, through the searches for innovation,
sparking of innovation creations, innovation collaborations and
investments, and innovation reporting and communications. The
enterprise-wide knowledge management system provides a system of business
processes and tools, which are designed to collect, enhance, and leverage
the organization's intellectual capital. However, the communications
provided by this system are not necessarily optimized for any particular
technology or business organization and do not appear to be readily
modified nor do they support optimal management and/or motivation of
creative personnel.

[0007]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0036947 to Smith et al.
describes systems and techniques for managing the submission of ideas in
an organization. Ideas are collected and entered into an electronic
archive accessible through a network, and then displayed so that the
members of the organization can provide additional thoughts related to
the submission. The ideas are then provided to a management screening
committee for screening. The screened ideas are then submitted to an idea
sponsor. This is followed by an opportunity screening phase, in which the
submitted, screen ideas are further developed and evaluated. An idea
submission tool is provided for web-based submissions. However, the
principal thrust of this system is to enhance communications for idea
development and to prevent idea loss.

[0008]U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,936 to Sanders describes an enterprise value
enhancement system that uses an enterprise value enhancement model based
on planning loop structures. The system receives field feedback input
from users in response to surveys generated by a field feedback survey
generator. A switchboard in the system sends this feedback, as well as
data from one or more databases, to parts of the system including a
performance processor, a customer asset valuation processor, a
performance metrics engine, and a value enhancement solution generator,
which generates value enhancement solutions for the enterprise. The
system focuses on value enhancement of an enterprise rather than on only
one specific aspect or area, such as marketing, finance or strategy.
While a process for evaluation of an employee contribution chain is
disclosed, it appears to be based on qualitative and subjective
estimations of aspects of employee performance.

[0009]U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,072 to Havens describes a computer-based
knowledge management system that receives submitted knowledge items,
maintains and provides access to these items, updates these items as
appropriate, prompts for and receives feedback relating to the items,
monitors various activities concerning the items, and generates a variety
of incentives to encourage desirable activities associated with the
items. The incentives for desirable knowledge worker activities are
stored in activity records that represent different perspectives from
which information related to knowledge items may be viewed, appreciated,
and applied to benefit the organization. Using appropriate incentives,
the behavior of knowledge workers within the organization may be
channeled in such a way that total intellectual capital is maximized. The
information accumulated in the activity records may be used for assessing
the productivity, contribution, and performance of knowledge workers,
thereby providing a basis for evaluating compensation, seniority, or
other aspects of the relationship between the knowledge workers and the
organization. However, this system does not provide for the evaluation of
the effectiveness and adaptive modification of the current incentives
which it supports for individuals or groupings of individuals who may be
differently motivated for different activities and at different times.

[0010]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0054545 to Knight describes
a system and method for managing innovation capabilities of an
organization by storing one or more quantitative values associated with
one or more innovation capabilities, each of which is associated with one
of a plurality of innovation levels. The method includes identifying an
innovation capability having a quantitative value associated with an
innovation level that falls below an expected innovation level value. The
method identifies solutions operable to increase the innovation level
associated with the quantitative value. However, these functions and
evaluations appear to be approached only at the organization level.

[0011]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0158745 to Katz et al.
describes a system for documenting, tracking and facilitating the
development of intellectual property, allowing a company to maintain a
dynamic network database of intellectual capital. Entries in the database
are stored on individual computers. Searches are conducted by
transmitting a search request to each computer on the network. The system
facilitates the development of intellectual capital when the members of
the development team are not in the same location by providing methods of
communication, scheduling, sharing files and searching for additional
team members.

[0012]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0083898 to Wick et al.
describes a system and method for monitoring intellectual capital using a
metrics engine and a dashboard. The metrics engine is operable to receive
a request associated with a metric, identify data associated with the
request, retrieve data based on the identified data and process the data
based on the requested metric. The dashboard is operable to graphically
display the provided data.

[0013]U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0091543 to Thakur describes
a method for acquiring, evaluating, patenting, and marketing innovation
by receiving inventions submitted by innovators. Descriptions of the
inventions are collected, categorized and evaluated. A database
containing the evaluated descriptions is made available to potential
users or customers of the inventions. The customers can review the
inventions by category, or by searching for solutions to problems they
would like to solve. Once an invention is identified, the customers can
review evaluations including technical feasibility, commercial
feasibility and patentability feasibility. A facilitator serves as an
arbitrator between innovators and customers for the intellectual property
in question. Licenses are also available, and the facilitator may take a
percentage of any licenses concluded.

[0014]U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,163 to Brown, et al. describes an on-line health
education and feedback system using motivational driver profile coding
and automated content fulfillment to provide customized health education
to an individual at a remote terminal to induce a modification in a
health-related behavior of the individual. The automated system includes
a questionnaire generator for questioning the individual to determine his
or her motivational drivers and comprehension capacity. A profile
generator receives answers entered by the individual from the remote
terminal and generates a motivational driver profile and a comprehension
capacity profile of the individual. A translator receives clinical data
relating to a current health condition of the individual and translates
the clinical data, the motivational driver profile, and the comprehension
capacity profile into a profile code. An educational fulfillment bank
matches the profile code to matching educational materials and transfers
the matched educational materials to the remote terminal.

[0015]U.S. Pat. No. 6,769,013 to Frees, et al. discloses a distribution
management system that can create a collaborative environment for members
of a team by facilitating synchronous and asynchronous communications,
taking advantage of electronic scheduling tools, supporting a facilitator
paradigm, and storing meeting communications for later retrieval over a
computer network. An interactive forum can be provided in the
collaborative environment in a manner offering varying degrees of
structure for collecting information from the members of the team. The
information can then be used to arrive at a collaboratively derived
decision.

[0016]In addition to the foregoing patents, there are a number of
commercial products that support innovation management. Of these, three
are pertinent to the present invention: IdeasTracker, Imaginatik, and
JPB.com. The IdeasTracker knowledge platform is a web-based resource for
companies to manage their ideas, knowledge and information, from
anywhere. The IdeasTracker platform allows a company to gather ideas,
peer review submissions, shared ideas, and create a central database of
ideas. This product is similar to other on-line idea suggestion programs.
However, this program requires a moderator to approve an idea for
submission. IdeasTracker can be run within the corporation or be
centrally located.

[0017]The Imaginatik system is an on-line idea suggestion and
collaboration system. Imaginatik's idea management software product suite
consists of Idea Central, Idea Chain, and additional add-on modules such
as: Portal Module, Rewards Module, Idea Warehouse and External Access
Module. The Idea Central product is designed to collect ideas from
employees, and contains the core functionality of the Idea Management
process, such as idea collection, idea development, evaluation, idea
browsing and search, and collaboration and workflow capabilities. The
Idea Chain product is designed to manage the collection and development
of ideas from external partners, such as suppliers, customers and
research partners. Idea Chain is based on Idea Central and includes
additional features to manage access rights, intellectual property
rights, and controlled collaboration. The portal module allows the client
to publish educational and general communications about the program. The
Rewards Module is used to establish a points-based recognition system.
The idea warehouse is a shared common repository of ideas from the
corporation. The External Access Module allows for access to the system
from outside the corporation.

[0018]The JPB.com suite of idea management products enables on-line
submission, collaboration/review, and evaluation of ideas. The suite
consists of Jenni Enterprise Idea Management, Sylvia Web Brainstorm, and
Alice Suggestion Box. The Jenni Enterprise Idea Management product
enables an organization to contribute ideas, collaborate, and monitor
impact and performance. This platform also provides an evaluation tool
that helps send ideas to the appropriate experts for completion. This
product also features: idea management, implementation management,
category management, user management, home page management and points
management. The Sylvia product platform is used for brainstorming
followed by evaluation and ranking of the ideas generated. The Alice
Suggestion Box platform allows customers to contribute suggestions which
can later be ranked and evaluated based on the same methodologies as
above.

[0019]In summary, the foregoing prior art systems do not address the often
static and non-adaptive management infrastructures which constrain the
effectiveness of these systems. Furthermore, they do not track or adapt
to the varied incentives which drive participants in such systems, nor do
they respond to the particular contribution profiles of system
participants. Consequently, these systems often do not perform as desired
or support the concurrent and continuous management of innovation and the
underlying creative talent and motivation for optimal performance of an
arbitrary business environment.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0020]It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a
system and method for adapting the management structures of the
enterprise to better leverage the ideas for innovations and process
improvements generated by the members of the enterprise.

[0021]A further object of the invention is to provide a system and method
for tracking and adapting to the varied incentives (sometimes referred to
hereinafter as motivational drivers) which drive those contributing ideas
for innovations and process improvements of value to the enterprise.

[0022]Another object of the invention is to provide a system and method of
innovation management that is responsive to the particular contribution
profiles of those participating.

[0023]A yet further object of the invention is to provide an innovation
tracking and management system with plenary capabilities for not only
optimally tracking, managing and documenting innovation development from
inception to deployment but also optimizing both incentives toward
contributions to all innovation being tracked and direction of efforts of
innovative personnel to optimize their participation and the added value
each individual participant brings to each innovation project.

[0024]In order to accomplish these and other objects of the invention, an
innovation signature management system is provided comprising and
arrangement for collecting information representing innovation activity
and reward and survey records for an individual to form an innovation
profile, an arrangement for developing an innovation signature for the
individual from information representing innovation activity, a
comparator for comparing the innovation signature with a definition of
desired innovation activity, a memory for storing motivational driver
information and changes made to motivational driver information
responsive to an output of the comparator, and a feedback path for said
motivational driver information to said reward and survey records for
said individual.

[0025]In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a method of
developing an managing an innovation signature is provided comprising
steps of collecting information in regard to innovative behavior of an
individual, surveying the individual in regard to current and historical
interests and reward preferences, storing records of information obtained
in the collecting and surveying steps, developing an innovation signature
based on information provided by the collecting, surveying and storing
steps, comparing the innovation signature with a definition of desired
innovation activity, altering and storing motivational drivers in
response to the comparing step, and refining the innovation signature
based on feedback of motivational drivers altered and stored in the
altering and storing step.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026]The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be
better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred
embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:

[0027]FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing the operating cycle of the
autonomic management system.

[0028]FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing how motivational signatures
are developed and revised.

[0029]FIG. 2A is a detail of FIG. 2, emphasizing inputs and feedback
arrangements of the motivational signature management in accordance with
the invention.

[0030]FIG. 3 is a chart showing the operation of components of the
innovative signature system.

[0031]FIG. 3A is a detail of FIG. 3 including different categories of
collected data to be used in developing innovation signatures.

[0032]FIG. 4 is a diagram showing overall operation of the constituent
systems of the autonomic innovation infrastructure when integrated.

[0033]FIG. 4A illustrates a preferred enhancement of the processing of
needs submissions in accordance with the invention.

[0034]FIG. 5 is a flowchart detailing an implementation of an autonomic
management system.

[0035]FIG. 6 is a flowchart detailing the development and use of
motivational signatures.

[0036]FIG. 7 is a flowchart detailing the development and use of
innovation signatures.

[0037]FIG. 8 is a flowchart detailing an implementation of an autonomic
innovation infrastructure.

[0038]FIG. 8A is a detailed illustration of the architecture of the
innovation pipeline analyzer of FIG. 8.

[0039]FIG. 8B is a detailed illustration of the architecture of the
pipeline manager of FIG. 8A.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

[0040]Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 1,
there is shown a conceptual diagram showing the operating cycle of the
autonomic management system in accordance with the invention. It should
be understood that it is an important feature of the invention to allow
and support optimal interaction of the invention with its environment,
including but not limited to the management personnel and procedures of a
business and incidents thereof, hereinafter collectively referred to as
the overall or integrated AMS innovation management system (as distinct
from the selectively autonomic, hence "autonomic", management system
provided by the invention or systems which can be used within the
invention which provide for innovation management alone but which can be
made adaptive and/or optimized in performance by use of the invention).
Therefore, FIGS. 1-4, in order to convey an overview of the operations
and interactions of the system and its constituent elements with its
environment, depict such operations in a matrix form with the invention
(AMS 100) and elements of its surrounding environment (e.g. management
system 110, respective employees 120 and management for AMS control 130)
depicted in respective rows and various stages of innovation development
and external control of the invention depicted in respective columns. The
architecture and operation flow of the invention to perform the functions
and interactions depicted in FIGS. 1-4 will be detailed below with
reference to FIGS. 5-8, respectively, all of which use commonly accepted
shapes for operations depicted such as a parallelogram for input/output
or a diamond shape for a decision, evaluation or branching operation.
Thus, FIGS. 1 and 5 relate to the basic system of the autonomic
management system (AMS) of the invention, FIGS. 2, 2A and 6 relate to the
development and use of a motivational signature management system for
optimizing employee participation and contribution, FIGS. 3, 3A and 7
relate to the development, use and management of an innovation signature
for optimizing employee assignment and allocation in accordance with
respective talent and expertise, and FIGS. 4 and 8 relate to integration
of the basic AMS (with FIG. 4A relating to an enhancement thereof for
handling needs submissions), with use and management of motivational and
innovation signatures of respective employees to provide a comprehensive,
adaptive system which effectively optimizes itself in an adaptive manner
to provide maximal performance in regard to innovation management within
a particular business with employees having differing talents and
responses to motivation in regard to contributions to innovation and
providing synergistic effects by utilizing adaptive capabilities of, for
example, the innovation signature management system to enhance adaptive
capabilities of, for example, the motivational signature management
system to obtain increased enhancement of the overall, integrated system
in accordance with the invention.

[0041]It will also be appreciated from FIGS. 1-4, in particular, that the
invention provides interactions with business management and employees
which model optimal business management practices and adaptively modify
those practices interactively and in a fine-grained manner to
continuously optimize performance of the system in accordance with the
invention. Further, since the system in accordance with the invention is
preferably executed using a data processor, the operations and
adaptations thereof are performed in a consistent manner but allowing
intervention upon due consideration by appropriate personnel and avoiding
potential inconsistency of performance or adaptation which would be
characteristic of attempts to perform such management manually. Of
course, attempted manual performance would necessarily involve much
increased personnel requirements to perform management with the
consideration of the detail of which the invention is capable and such
increase in personnel would necessarily compromise consistency of
performance and be likely to have adverse effects on employee performance
and morale.

[0042]FIG. 1 is intended to convey an understanding of the use of an
innovation management system to provide adaptive change in that
innovation management system. For that reason, the underlying management
principles and particulars and details of the initial innovation
management system employed is of relatively lesser importance since such
principles, particulars and details can be adaptively changed in
accordance with the invention. Thus, the emphasis in FIG. 1 is on the
utilization of feedback loops and other utilization of feedback which
maintains the innovation system tightly coupled through continuous
responsiveness to suggestions or concerns about how the innovation
management system, itself, is working.

[0043]At the management system stage of operation 111, it is assumed that
the management system 110 is in a particular state 112 with certain
principles and policies established, such as the initial state of a
software innovation tracking system operating much in the manner of known
systems discussed above, but having the capability for the principles and
policies embodied in such software to be readily modified. The capability
of providing such modification can be readily accomplished by, for
example, conditioning certain actions of the result of dynamically
evaluated expressions which can be altered to include, exclude or change
weighting of particular qualitative or quantitative parameters or other
expedients well-understood by journeyman computer programmers.

[0044]At the exposure operation stage 122. the current principles and
policies are promulgated to employees 120; to which the employees may or
may not provide various types of feedback in various forms (e.g. memos,
responses to questionnaires, direct system input and the like). This
feedback is provided to the AMS system of the invention 100 at 132 in the
feedback stage of operation 131 and, in the following sponsor
identification/owner of change ID stage of operation 141, the identity of
the owner or originator of the feedback is determined and preferably
categorized as to employee type (e.g. research, development, marketing or
the like). It has been found in the course of experimental trials of the
invention that employees having a particular type of function in the
business operation or innovation enterprise may have radically different
feedback responses and policy changes corresponding to different types of
feedback responses may be useful in enhancing specific stages of the
innovation inception, development and deployment of a particular product
or improvement thereof due to differences in responses to motivational
incentives.

[0045]It has also been found useful to discriminate whether the feedback
is directed to a system (i.e. in the sense of management infrastructure)
change or a innovation/management (i.e. in the sense of management of the
innovation or management of the business in respect to the innovation)
change or a combination thereof since aspects of the feedback
respectively pertaining to the AMS system 100, itself, and the AMS
management 130 are most efficiently and meaningfully handled in different
ways. This discrimination is depicted in FIG. 1 as a branching operation
142 which provides one branch continuing in the AMS system 100 and
another branch 143 providing feedback output 144 to the AMS management
130 (although, in theory, both branches can the concurrently taken).

[0046]Within the AMS system at the change evaluation operation stage 151,
a system review is initiated and an evaluation of system results 152 is
performed within the AMS system. Such an evaluation may involve the
retrieval of historical data in regard to similar changes and the
surrounding conditions most similar to the feedback data in order to
project the effect of such a change by any of a number of known
techniques such as perturbation analysis. In the AMS management element
130, essentially the same general type of analysis and evaluation 154 is
performed but allowing intervention of management personnel charged with
overseeing performance of the AMS system 100. In other words, the system
can be enabled, within given parameters to make changes autonomously. If
the change is outside those parameters, management review is required.
(In view of the selectively autonomous operation of the invention, it is
referred to as "autonomic".) For example, the system can be programmed to
make a change in the awards system to change award methodology whereas it
is considered preferable in most cases, delineated by closely defined
parameters, it is preferred to involve management/human intervention in
infrastructure changes. This feature allows feedback which may require
subjective judgement for proper evaluation to have that subjective
judgement applied in projecting the magnitude of any benefit, if any, on
the innovation management process and or evaluation of human factors such
as effect on employee morale if, for example, the change is particularly
radical or related to a change recently made that might indicate some
degree of indecision on the part of the management of the business.

[0047]Depending on the result of such an evaluation, which can maximally
consider possibly related factors in a maximally consistent manner due to
the provision for both internal and external (to the AMS system) to the
extent each may be appropriate to the subject matter of the feedback
information. This aspect of the decision operation stage is depicted in
FIG. 1 by placing go/no go decision operation 162 and the implement
change operation 172 of the change execution stage of operation 171 in a
location bridging the AMS system and AMS management elements of the
invention and its environment. The change thus implemented, if any, is
then fed back to management system 112 and the process continually
repeated while the results of the change recommendation are reported in
the reporting stage of operation 181 by, for example, display 182 of a
comparison of results before and after the change. Thus it is seen that
the invention is capable of adaptive modification responsive to
management of the business and input from its employees while supporting
both internal (e.g. automatic) and/or external (e.g. manual) evaluation
of potential impact of any changes to be made as well as automatic and
adaptive implementation, where appropriate.

[0048]Referring now to FIG. 2, the development and use of a motivational
signature 200 will now be discussed. This aspect of the invention
determines what system of awards/rewards is best suited to motivate
particular individuals by maintaining an up-to-date motivational
signature for each employee or groups of employees which managers can use
to tailor rewards appropriately to provide the most effective incentives
to contribute to innovation. It should be noted that the management
element 110 and the employee element 120 of the environment of the
invention described in FIG. 1 are also present in FIG. 1, as is the
exposure stage of operation 121. The motivational signature element is
specifically depicted as element 140 in FIG. 2. Additionally, a
customized motivational structure 150 and a general motivational
structure 160 are depicted. The remainder of operational stages 221-261
differ from the operational stages discussed above in connection with
FIG. 1 but are preferably carried out in parallel therewith. As with FIG.
1, however, FIG. 2 is arranged to emphasize inputs and feedback by which
this motivational signature feature of the present invention is made
continuously adaptive in order to perform optimally in the inception,
development and deployment of innovation.

[0049]The operation of the motivational signature feature of the invention
begins with a definition of motivational drivers and/or award options and
parameters 1121 which may be or be the same as default values. This
definition is the basic starting point for customization of motivational
options and parameters and should be the same for all employees and
maintained until altered as a matter of business management policy
largely independently of the invention. This maintained policy with
minimal connection with the operation of the invention is depicted in
FIG. 2 by the lack of any other operation being performed in the other
operational stages of FIG. 2 other than the feedback loop passing through
some stages of the management element at stages 231-251 which represents
some possible degree of manual reaction to adaptive behaviors of the
motivational signatures over the population of employees/individuals or
groups of employees/individuals. For example, if a single motivational
signature (with some possible degree of individual variation) was
developed for a large proportion of the employees of a business,
management could decide to modify the default options and parameters to
conform thereto to thereafter become the benchmark for other adaptive
modifications for particular individuals. Again, it is considered to be a
preferable management practice (but certainly not necessary to the
successful practice of this feature of the invention) to have a standard
motivational incentive policy applicable to all employees but which can
then be tailored to individuals as employee performance and the efficacy
of changes may warrant. It is also considered to be desirable to provide
for initial modification in regard to individual employees to accommodate
the results of employment negotiations and the like. Therefore, it should
be understood that the definitions of award/reward options and parameters
may include individual default motivational options and parameters as
well as group-wide (e.g. to reflect differences in incentives for groups
such as a research group or development group) or business-wide defaults.

[0050]In any case, the initial and/or default motivational incentive
options and parameters are reported, possibly discriminating if initial
values are the same as default parameters as illustrated at 1141, as
indicated at 1161. Referring now also to FIG. 2A, it is assumed that
these default motivational driver award options and parameters are
archived as a default motivational profile and provided as an input to a
motivational signature diagnostic system 1250 (so-called because
information regarding motivational drivers collected from individuals and
groups of individuals will preferably include information regarding the
perceived efficacy of the motivational driver and reward options and
parameters 1121 to which the individuals are exposed at 1161). The
archived motivational profile may, preferably, also track all of the
diagnostic tools information and motivational driver selection from
inception through the current stage or development and/or deployment of
each project or innovation.

[0051]This motivational system diagnostic system also receives inputs from
individual employees, preferably from initial and/or periodic surveys
1241 such as may be assembled from current answers 1265 to queries 1221
about what motivational drivers they prefer, individually or
collectively. For example, an employee might be asked whether they would
prefer a cash award or additional (e.g. departmental) funding and/or
additional paid time to work on development of their ideas or those of
others. The answers may be collected and conveyed by, for example, an
on-line submission form, a hard copy submission form, a telephone
submission form, an interview or the like collectively referred to and
depicted as conduits 1299. This diagnostic tool is used to assess the
preferences of users on a spectrum of intrinsic through extrinsic
motivational drivers. This information is used to form an initial
motivational signature 1341 which is archived as a custom motivational
driver definition 1351. This information is also fed back and published
at 1161 through a comparison operation 1141 if found to be different from
the motivational driver definition established at 1121, as discussed
above.

[0052]Inputs are also provided from the innovation signature system of the
invention which will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS.
3 and 3A and from a post-reward diagnostic 1621 and survey 1643 of driver
selections which is fed back from an evaluation of effects and evaluation
of perceived effects of particular motivational drivers (as will be
described in detail below). The difference between inputs 1221 and 1643
is subtle: the former (1221) surveys the users for statements regarding
the reward they want or expect if desired behavior is completed while the
latter (1643) is a diagnostic tool used after a reward is made to better
understand the user's stated preferences after a reward is made for
performance and completion of a desired behavior. Such a process allows
an adaptive refinement of motivational drivers which reduces the effects
of any bias in the employees statements of motivational driver
preferences (which are usually inherent therein). These inputs are used
to develop a current motivational signature 1341 (e.g. as a possible
modification of the immediately prior motivational signature) for the
employee or group of employees which will be applied at the next
occurrence of completion of a desired behavior 1421 which is also fed
back and published at 1161 if different from the initial motivational
driver definition established at 1121 and the immediately prior
motivational signature 1341.

[0053]More specifically, until a first occurrence of a desired behavior,
the only inputs which exist are the current (default) definition of
motivational drivers 1121 and the results 1241 of a diagnostic survey
1241 which may be used to adjust or refine the current definition of
motivational drivers for an individual employee or group of employees
based on their stated preferences and perceptions of rewards which they
believe will provide optimal motivation for desired behavior. In general
and as a practical matter, the initial state of the motivational
signature definition 1341, if different from the current general policy
of the business as defined at 1121, will be negotiated with the employee
at the time other conditions of employment are agreed upon which will, in
effect, serve as an initial iteration of the diagnostic answers and
survey 1221, 1241 and may result in a custom motivational driver
definition 1351 which will serve as a current motivational signature
1341. This definition/signature may be refined by further iterations of
the diagnostic survey, as described above.

[0054]The current motivational signature 1341, upon completion of the
desired behavior 1421, then determines the reward or other motivational
driver delivered to the employee, as illustrated at 1541 (at the level of
the motivational system 140) and 1521 (at the level of the employee 120).
The employee is then provided an opportunity to express a reaction to the
reward or motivational driver as a post-reward diagnostic answer 1621
which is collected and summarized as a post-reward survey 1643 and
evaluated to determine if the motivational signature definition is
optimal or not. If not, indicated changes are fed back to further refine
the motivational signature definition at 1341. This process allows
assessment of the impact of rewards on future motivation and
determination if there are types or levels of rewards which have little
impact for an individual. Thus, the motivational signature system in
accordance with the invention provides for implementation of a general
policy (at 1121) with provision for refinement thereof; the refinement
being based upon initial employee negotiations or employee feedback,
individually or in groups, based on general perceptions of effectiveness
of the current motivational signatures and policies to produce desired
behaviors and further refinement based on employee reactions,
individually or in groups, to rewards or other motivational drivers
delivered in response to completion of desired activity. Thus the
management of motivational policies and signatures in accordance with the
invention provides for continual feedback at several levels to maintain
the effectiveness of the motivational management system at near-optimum
levels by improving delivery of motivational reward/drivers of most
interest to the employee; benefitting the business and employee alike.

[0055]Referring now to FIGS. 3 and 3A the innovation signature management
system of the invention will now be discussed. In general, this aspect of
the overall autonomic management system allows tracking of the abilities,
expertise and contributions of individual employees in order to optimally
manage their deployment in regard to the conception and development of
innovation. In FIG. 3, the stages of operation 131-136 are depicted as
columns and portions of the environment of the innovation signature
system 170 are depicted in rows, including the general motivational
structure 200 described above with reference to FIGS. 2 and 2A.

[0056]It should be understood that both FIG. 3 and FIG. 3A (which presents
portions of FIG. 3 in greater detail and some variations which may be
preferable in some applications) are both substantially simplified in the
interest of clarity. In general, there are many aspects of personality,
talent expertise, interest and the like which may have a bearing on the
development of an innovation profile or signature of a particular person
or employee which may have a bearing on the situation and circumstances
into which the person or employee may be deployed most efficaciously.

[0057]Categories of information which are presently considered preferable
to collect may include innovative motivational signatures, a contribution
profile, contribution performance, an innovation profile, an activity
profile and organizational "citizenship". An innovative motivational
signature may include current interests, historical interests and both
current and historical motivational signatures as described above in
connection with FIG. 2. These sub-categories of information allow an
assessment of an individual's relative self-motivation relative to
particular technologies, interest areas, subject matter and the like. A
contribution profile is principally concerned with the nature and number
or frequency and nature of innovation submissions. That is, innovation
submissions are not only tracked in number for particular employees to
determine the level of initiative of the employees but it is considered
to also track the relative numbers of innovation submissions in at least
the sub-categories of innovative ideas, problem recognition, solutions to
recognized problems, re-use of prior innovation and autonomics (e.g. the
way in which people have made submissions that affect the system of the
invention). Similarly, the category of contribution performance should
allow evaluation of both the quality and quantity on innovation activity
of an employee, such as number of ideas referenced as foundational,
number of times the employee's's ideas are selected for presentation, the
number of ideas which are implemented by the business the number of
patent applications filed, the number of patents awarded and other types
of recognition of an employee's recognition for contributions to the
business. The information collected for the innovation profile category
of information involve the nature of the potential impact of the
innovation(s) submitted by the employee and with which the employee is
most comfortable and creative. For example, the principal submissions of
a particular employee may be incremental, evolutionary or radical (i.e.
this may express the "size" of the "big picture" which is characteristic
of the employee's thought processes). It may also be useful to track
whether the submissions or projected submissions concerning the business
are directed horizontal, inter-organizational applications or vertical,
intra-organizational applications. It is considered to be preferable that
the specific types of information collected for the innovation profile be
chosen to cover a spectra of different qualities of innovation such as
may be expressed as a dimension of a multidimensional matrix or a point
on one of potentially may vectors. That is, each of the above groups of
examples represents a dimension of a multi-dimensional matrix or a vector
among potentially many such dimensions or vectors to categorize the
innovation profile of an individual. The activity profile may include the
number of votes (e.g. the number of times an employee has rated a
submission by someone else) submitted, the number of items reviewed (e.g.
the number of times an individual employee has commented on or
collaborated upon an idea), and the like. Organizational citizenship
should preferably include current and historical administrative placement
within the business organization, projects in which the employee
participated and volunteer participation and activities. It should be
understood that the above preferred types of information from which the
innovation signature is derived are only intended to be exemplary and
many other types and organizations of data may be preferable in
particular applications, as will be evident to those skilled in the art
in view of the above discussion. Further, while the above types of data
do not all appear in either of FIG. 3 or 3A, all categories noted above
except the innovative motivational signature (which may be collected in
connection with development of the motivational signature as discussed
above, portions of which data have utility therein) appear in FIG. 3A
while FIG. 3, as a matter of convenience and clarity of illustration as
well as indicating similarities of handling of the respectively
illustrated categories of information, divides such information as
current interests historical interests, reward preferences and reward
history; the latter two categories generally corresponding to the
innovative motivational signature category of information discussed
above. Again, it should be understood that the categories mentioned as
being deemed preferable by the inventor at the present time are not at
all critical to the practice of the invention but should be chosen in
view of the business and business environment to which the invention is
applied. It is only necessary to collect sufficient data and provide an
organization of that data sufficient to adequately form a
characterization of likely innovative contributions an individual is
likely to make when placed in a given environment within a business. It
also follows that the complexity of the organization of data need only be
commensurate with the organizational complexity of the business and the
range of qualities of environment that may exist within it since the
basic goal of the innovative signature management aspect of the invention
is to allow optimal placement of respective employees within the business
organization to support the highest levels of innovative activity.

[0058]The innovation profile aspect of the invention preferably provides
for collection of the data upon which it operates from both a survey of
the employees and from direct and/or independent observation of employee
performance in the behavior stage of operation 131. As with the
motivational signature data and diagnostic surveys discussed above in
connection with FIG. 2, data 3731 supplied by employees is useful,
especially in terms of employee morale and personalization of profiles in
a fine-grained manner but may not be entirely realistic or accurate and,
in any cases, is subject to projection of personal self-image thereon
while independently derived data 3231 may not adequately reflect
personality factors such as talent, expertise, personal and psychological
needs and the like to support optimal management decisions. However,
independently collected data 3231 allows a much more complete
understanding and evaluation of the much more detailed data 3731 derived
directly from the employees. This understanding is also enhanced by
rewards and post-reward diagnostic survey records 3201 which, itself, may
be regarded as deriving from a combination of employee-provided and
independently collected data which, while not necessarily completely
objective, tends to be more immediate and certainly less reflective of
projected self-image and the like and provides feedback by which the
innovation signature may be refined.

[0059]The information from these sources is, in tracking stage 132,
organized into various categories 3732, as discussed above. It is
preferable that each category provide a quantitative descriptor of a
distinct characteristic of employee personalty, talent, experience,
preference and the like whether as a dimension of a multi-dimensional
matrix, as distance along each of a potentially large plurality of
vectors or some other construct. These quantitative descriptors may then
be merged in a manner not important to the practice of the invention to,
in combination, provide an innovation signature 3733 during the profiling
phase of operation 133. This information is provided for comparison with
a definition of desired innovation activity at comparator 3735 to change
motivational drivers which are preferably stored in memory at 3336 or
maintained at 3236 to reinforce desired behaviors after analysis of
innovative activity records information 3735 in the innovation signature
in the innovation pipeline phase of operation 135 in comparison with the
definition of desired activity 3334 established during an innovative
strategy definition phase of operation 134 and to refine innovation
signatures as illustrated in FIG. 3A. The information is also recorded as
a historical record as indicated at 5300 of FIG. 8. Of course, if the
analysis 3735 indicates no change should be made, motivational drivers
are maintained in the general motivational structure 200, as illustrated
at 3236 in the optimization phase of operation 136. In either case, the
innovation signature should preferably maintain or modify at least
motivational preferences (which are fed back as an input to the
motivational signature definition 1341 of FIG. 2), an innovation profile
and a history of preference and motivational and innovation profiles.

[0060]Referring now to FIG. 4, an overview of a preferred integration of
the above autonomic management system, motivational signature management
system and innovation signature management system will now be discussed.
Control of the integrated system 400 is depicted at 4011 in operational
period 410 particularly to allow control to be exercised over exposure of
the systems included therein to employees and others 1221 during
operational period 420. That is, operation 4011 and column 410 are
intended to illustrate preparation for exposure to the system such as by
transfer of current data for display and the like prior to exposure of
all systems 1221 to the ends user in exposure stage 420. As alluded to
above, this exposure conveys the current general policies, projects and
programs of the business, the individual motivational arrangements and
data included in the individual innovation signatures as may be desired
for management review, employee performance review and the like as well
as for initiating diagnostic surveys as discussed above. This information
is preferably divided and suitably limited in regard to the persons to
whom it is exposed and to the autonomic management system, motivational
signature management system and innovation signature management system,
all of which have been discussed above, as depicted at 1031, 3031 and
2031 of FIG. 4. That is, in the profile/tracking operational stage 430,
current information about the system an particular innovation being
currently managed thereby is provided and historical information
maintained at operation 1031 in autonomic management system 100 to
support the feedback discussed above in regard to FIG. 1. Similarly.
innovative behavior information is provided to the innovation signature
management system and the innovative behavior tracked thereby as depicted
at 3031 while motivational drivers and incentive information is provided
to the motivational signature management system 200 as depicted as 2031.
These divisions of information, once operated upon by the respective
systems of the invention then collectively form a master profile 4032
which is archived such that portions can be retrieved by the system, as
needed. Respective portions of the master profile 4032 are also stored as
an innovative signature 3082 and motivational signature 2082. It should
be appreciated that while all of these systems contain their own internal
feedback arrangements, as discussed above, the autonomic management
system 100 and the innovation signature management system 300 also
receive additional information in connection with innovative activity
such as submission (1222) of an idea or a need (as will be discussed
below) with appropriate routing while the motivational signature
management system receives feedback from the overall integrated system,
as well. In this regard, it should be appreciated that the system of the
present invention also allows for the management of innovation directed
to not only operation but to actual improvements in the various systems
of the invention itself.

[0061]Whenever an input or submission is made in regard to a need which
can potentially be answered by the business or an innovation, it is
entered into and thereafter distributed through the integrated system 400
as depicted by display 4053 in operational period 460. Essentially, both
recognized needs and innovation are advertised to employees along with
potential rewards/motivational drivers corresponding to respective
responses which are thus solicited as depicted by the illustrated output
from 4085 to FIG. 2.

[0062]It is then determined by the integrated system whether or not the
submission itself and/or a response to the particular submission (i.e. if
someone submits a need and someone else subsequently submits a solution)
should be assigned a reward. If a reward is to be assigned to the
submission of an acceptable response, the employees/end-users of the
integrated system are then reminded periodically of the availability of
that reward as depicted at 1223. If the submission itself is assigned a
reward, that information is fed back to the motivational signature system
200 at the tracking phase thereof depicted at 2031. Whenever a reward is
to be made a notification is made to all or selected users/employees 1224
as may be desired for additional motivational impact and the impact
evaluated by a diagnostic process similar to those discussed above in
connection with FIG. 1 and the results also fed back to the motivational
signature system for tracking as depicted at 2031.

[0063]As a perfecting feature of the invention, the processing of needs
submissions alluded to above may be enhanced by the perfecting feature of
the invention as detailed in FIG. 4A. The layout of FIG. 4A differs
somewhat from FIGS. 1-4 discussed above in that the row 120' designated
"submitter" is actually a subset of end user/employee row 120 which is
distinguished from the latter by the behavior 451 of making a submission.
Additionally, row 450 designated "innovation site or medium" is also a
subset of end users/employees 120 distinguished from the latter by prior
submission of potentially matching innovation.

[0064]This process begins with a needs submission 4521 which is
essentially a presentation of a need of potential customers of the
business to which the invention may be applied which it is perceived that
the business could profitably answer. Some possible suggestions for
solution or implementation may be included in the submission but are not
necessary to successful processing of a needs request. The submission is
recorded in a submission database 4012 and recommendations for a match
with previously submitted innovations is made at 4013. This can be
accomplished using any of a variety of known techniques such as matching
of terminology, key words, or additional information appended to
submissions indicating possibilities for application. If a possible match
is discovered, the particulars of both the need and the potentially
matching innovation a communicated to the submitter of the need as
depicted at 4522 and to the innovation site or medium (e.g. the submitter
of the matching innovation). If the submitter does not find the potential
match to be an actual match, the need is, nevertheless, communicated in a
searchable form to the innovation site or medium, as depicted at 4551 as
being a location within the business most likely to be able to provide a
solution to answer the needs submission on the theory that such an
innovation site would at least be more familiar with possibly matching
types of innovation and underlying technologies appropriate to the
submitted need. On the other hand, apparently effective matches of need
and innovation are also communicated to the matching innovation site
where both the innovation and the match to the need may be refined as
depicted at 4552. The resulting potential solution is presented to other
employees at 4523 for possible further refinement and the result again
communicated to the innovation site or medium 450 as depicted at 4573 and
possibly refined even further. This result is then forwarded to the
submitter of the need 120' to determine the validity of the result as a
solution to the problem. If no match is found or if a proposed match in
not considered valid, that determination is fed back to 4521 to be
included with the submission. In the same manner, any objection to the
solution or clarification of the need may be made by the original
submitter and the process repeated until an acceptable solution is as
fully matched to the submitted need as possible or the lack of a match
finally determined.

[0065]Referring now to FIGS. 5-8, preferred methodologies for operating
the various systems and overall integration thereof will now be
discussed. As noted above, the operation of the AMS system 100 in
accordance with the invention will be discussed in connection with FIG.
5, the operation of the motivational signature management system 200 will
be discussed in connection with FIG. 6, the innovation signature
management system 300 will be discussed in connection with FIG. 7 and the
integrated overall AMS system will be discussed in connection with FIG.
8. It should be understood that FIGS. 5-8 supply substantial detail in
regard to particular operations depicted in FIGS. 1-4, respectively,
while the overall function including the numerous feedback arrangements
of FIGS. 1-4 are omitted or only generally indicated in FIGS. 5-8 but
must implicitly be considered as overlaid thereon.

[0066]Referring now to FIG. 5, a preferred system for management of
innovation submissions will be discussed. As alluded to above, this
autonomous management system has the capacity not only of tracking the
development of innovation submissions during their development but also
the capacity to provide integration with submissions of perceived needs
and/or opportunities as well as monitoring and adaptively optimizing the
autonomous management system itself; functions not previously available
in known innovation management systems. Accordingly, separate inputs for
organizational ideas 5001, organizational needs/opportunities 5002 and
infrastructure ideas 5003 are illustrated but which can be integrated in
any combination and even performed concurrently using the same conduits
5004 such as periodic diagnostic surveys, questionnaires, prompts for
feedback, independent data capture an the like which can be performed
over any desired communication medium 5005, a web site, sametime/instant
messaging, off-line e-mail, and telephone links being somewhat preferred
as providing messages in a form that can be electronically archived with
little, if any, processing. These submissions, collected over time, form
a background aggregation of submissions 5006 which may then be organized
into a submission database 5007 in a manner not critical to the practice
of the invention; many suitable database structures being known to those
skilled in the art.

[0067]It is considered to be desirable to provide continuous or at least
periodic and preferably manual broker screening 5008 of the submissions
placed in the database to remove submissions which are of no interest to
the business as well as to provide timely acknowledgment and initial
substantive consideration of all submissions. Such a response is
considered important to maintain employee morale and support for the
submission policy of the business to maintain an adequate volume of
submissions and innovation within the business. If a submission is
rejected at this stage, as depicted by go/no go decision 5009, a message
is sent to the submitter/innovator 5010 via e-mail, web site or the like
or other communication techniques, preferably electronically and
preferably reflecting significant substantive consideration and possibly
constructive suggestions for subsequent submissions as well as reasons
for the rejection of the submission.

[0068]If the submission passes this initial screening, the invention
facilitates a more thorough review 5011 which begins with posting of the
idea 5012 for peer review 5013. It may be desirable for the peer review
5013 to function as a further screening by a panel, as illustrated by a
dashed line, which could vote thereon (5015) to possibly reject (5016)
the submission, in which case a message, as discussed above, would be
sent to the innovator. The present invention preferably may also
facilitate collaboration 5014 in response to such a rejection and such
collaboration may modify or further develop the submission an reinsert it
in the innovation development process (e.g. at development operation
5017), also facilitated by the present invention. On the other hand, it
is considered preferable, if the submission has passed broker screening
and thus presumably contains a modicum of merit relevant to the business,
to provide for at least the possibility of some development or at least
to consider doing so before rejection even if rejected at 5016.
Therefore, the current state of the innovation/submission is documented
as illustrated at 5017 (even if rejected at 5016) and it is determined at
5018 whether or not the idea/submission is to be further developed. If
so, the process loops back to collaboration 5014 and the originator is
notified (5010) thereof. After collaboration 5014 to provide some
arbitrary degree of further development, the current state of the
idea/submission is again documented at 5017 and it is again determined
whether or not to further update the idea/submission at 5018. This is a
decision from a user whether or not to re-enter a submission and reset
its voting if deemed appropriate.

[0069]If it is determined not to update (or further update) the
idea/submission, a series of operations generally indicated at 5020 are
preferably performed. If the submission is not to be updated, no change
is made in the submission record as indicated at 5021 and the submission
remains in the innovation portfolio (perhaps marked as dormant). If, on
the other hand, the submission is to be updated or revised and
re-submitted, as determined at 5018, it is deemed preferable (e.g. for
uniformity of treatment to support morale and the like) to submit a
request for reset of the peer voting, as illustrated at 5022. This
request is reviewed and a determination is made as to whether or not to
reset the voting at 5023. If the vote is not to be reset, the process
branches to 5021, described above, and no change is made. If desired,
this action can halt the update/revise process. If the reset is approved,
the reset is performed at 5024 (preferably with review by a person with
administrative or managerial authority) and the submission is re-entered
into the system at 5012. As will be described below, however, other
routes (e.g. managerial review and peer adoption) are provided by which a
submission can be re-entered into the system, as well.

[0070]It should be understood that it is preferred to allow an idea to be
elected even while in the process of being collaborated upon. In other
words, progress achieved through collaboration may be sufficiently
encouraging to support election even before collaboration is completed
and the final result of collaboration becomes known. If an idea is
initially or eventually elected (5031) a final review and development
process generally indicated at 5030 is performed. This includes
documentation of the innovation as being a selected file as depicted at
5032. These files are then periodically reviewed by an innovation broker
(5033) who then is teamed with the submitter/innovator to prepare the
innovation for presentation to persons charged with making major
decisions of the business, as depicted at 5034. More detail in regard to
the innovation may be needed in this process and may result in
communications being communicated through the system of the invention as
depicted at 5010. The thorough review and final development performed in
this preparation of the innovation for presentation may reveal problems
not previously discovered and may result in rejection of the innovation
even at this late stage. However, if the innovation is not rejected, it
is presented to the leadership of the business at 5036 and a final go/no
go decision is made at 5037, leading to either implementation 5038 or
deferral 5039.

[0071]Referring now to FIG. 6, the preferred motivational signature
management system operation will now be described. As described above
with reference to FIG. 2, the motivational signature system portion of
the present invention is principally directed to the development of an
arrangement of motivational drivers on both a group basis and a
fine-grained personal basis and in an adaptive manner in order to
maintain a high level of innovative motivation over a population of
employees of a business to which the invention may be applied. Support of
such a function is principally based on collection and aggregation of
data, principal sources of which in the environment of a business and
personal motivation in regard to activities therein is clearly subject to
significant degrees of bias. Further, in the context of the overall
integrated innovation management system of the invention, the information
needed to support this function is, in large part, closely related to
particular innovative activities and thus closely related to information
useful in developing innovation signatures for employees and groups of
employees. Therefore, it is considered preferable to develop such data
over a range of circumstances and over time in order to discern more
accurate motivational signatures.

[0072]FIG. 6 depicts preferred sources of motivational data in two groups:
motivational signature inputs 6001 and Innovation signature inputs. It
will be recalled that FIG. 2 also indicated data input in accordance with
two different circumstances: answers to an initial or periodic diagnostic
survey and answers to a post-reward diagnostic survey. It is to be
understood that both groups of inputs illustrated in FIG. 6 may be
utilized for either of the diagnostic surveys of FIG. 2.

[0073]The group of motivational signature inputs 6001 preferably include
but are not limited to diagnostic survey data 6003, motivational driver
selections 6004 and archived motivational profiles from which a
motivational signature 6007 in developed as a component of the innovation
signature for an employee or group of employees. Current innovative
interest data 6006 is also part of the innovation signature data which is
considered by the motivational signature management system. It is
considered preferable to include current innovative interest data since
an employee should, at least in theory, be more self-motivated to pursue
a current personal interest while enhancement of motivation for such
pursuits may be more likely to involve different types of motivational
drivers in different degree than for other innovative pursuits to be
similarly enhanced. For example, it has been found, using the invention,
that employees principally involved in research are most strongly
motivated by increased funding for current and anticipate projects than
in personal rewards, possibly due to the increased sense of security for
their positions and the possible availability of increased compensation
through overtime and the like.

[0074]The other inputs 6008-6012 are also common to the development of an
innovative activity profile which is automatically generated from
historical data in accordance with the invention. It will be appreciated
that the totality of the information included in inputs 6008-6011
substantially corresponds to the information included in inputs 3732 of
FIG. 3 and includes organizational citizenship information 6012 omitted
from FIG. 3 for clarity (and the fact that, in practice, it may be
changed or updated less frequently. These data components preferably
include, but are not limited to a contribution profile 6008, a
contribution performance record 6009, and innovation profile 6010, and
activity profile 6011 and organizational citizenship 6012. The
motivational signature 6007 (which is derived from inputs 6001 (e.g.
6002-6004)) and the current innovation interests data 6006 (preferably
reflecting general categories of innovation such as radical, incremental
or evolutionary innovation or innovation which may be implement within,
for example one-month, one year or five year or very futuristic time
spans) are input to the innovation signature diagnostic tool 6015 through
conduits 6014 such as were discussed above in connection with conduits
5004 of FIG. 5. Other inputs from innovative activity profile 6013 may be
directly input thereto. It should be understood that the diagnostic tool
substantially corresponds to the elements 1221, 1241 and 1341 indicated
by dashed line 1250 in FIG. 2. This information is then processed as
indicated at 6016 to develop an innovation signature 6020 comprising a
(possibly adjusted or changed) list of motivational preferences 6021
which may include fixed initial rewards 6030 and/or value or impact based
rewards 6040, innovations profiles 6022 and an archival history of those
parameters. The processing performed is not critical to the practice of
the invention and may be altered, possibly adaptively, to enhance the
degree of motivation and matching of incentives (e.g. time off, service
vouchers, departmental funding or other resources, recognition and other
publicity and the like) to employee responses as the biases inherent in
the original data are identified and quantified based on a comparison to
actual effects. However, it is contemplated to be preferred that
processing similar to a trade-off analysis with quantification of the
importance of each incentives which may be relatively simple since only
motivational preference characteristics (such as currently preferred
drivers including but not limited to time off, service vouchers,
increased departmental funding and the like) are of interest in this
system of the invention or as complex and detailed as may be considered
to be justified. The motivational preferences 6021 may then be used, upon
completion by an employee of an activity which the business wishes to
encourage as discussed above in connection with FIG. 2, to determine an
initial award and/or a value-based or impact-based award for that
employee.

[0075]Referring now to FIG. 7, it will be recognized that FIG. 7 is
substantially a subset of FIG. 6; principally omitting sources of
information specific to motivation and retaining sources of information
of relevance to innovative performance preferences and characteristics of
interest in this system of the invention. Therefore, the constituent
elements and their organization shown in FIG. 7 need not be further
discussed individually. However, it is important to note that for
collecting the current motivational profile 6004 in regard to developing
an innovation signature for each employee which is to be used for
determining optimal placement of the employee within the organizational
structure of the business using the invention, that, in addition to
diagnostic surveys 7002, similar to those discussed above discussed
above, information regarding employee interests and preferred activities
be collected as responses to menu selections which are specific to
particular activities and organizational division of the business. The
processing at 6016 in FIG. 7 should be preferably somewhat similar to
that of FIG. 6 but may be further simplified in accordance with the
reduced data set and may apply somewhat different expressions to be
evaluated (e.g. applying different weights to particular types of
information) since the result of interest is finding a match of an
employee to a location within the organizational structure of the
business which will optimally support creative and innovative activity.

[0076]Turning now to FIG. 8 there is shown a detailed implementation of an
autonomic innovation infrastructure comprised of the three components
described above in connection with FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, namely, the
autonomic system for managing innovation (FIGS. 1 and 5), the system for
establishing and managing motivational signatures and recognizing
motivational drivers (FIGS. 2 and 6), and the system for monitoring and
managing innovation signatures (FIGS. 3 and 7). The interaction of this
autonomic innovation management infrastructure with a business
environment in which it is employed has been discussed above in
connection with FIG. 4. Thus, the following discussion of FIG. 8 will
also serve to summarize the above discussions of individual systems and
their integration into an overall innovation management system which also
optimizes motivation for innovation and employee deployment in an
adaptive manner to support maximal innovative performance within a
business.

[0077]Input: At the top of FIG. 8 are the components for handling
submission 100 of inputs to the system. There are various types of ideas
which the user might submit. An idea may be classified 105 as a new
product, process, or solution. A Need/Problem 110 is a problem that needs
a solution. A Need/Opportunity 115 is an opportunity that would result in
increased revenue or decreased cost. A Solution 120 is when the end-user
goes into the system, identifies a problem or opportunity, and presents a
solution. A Reuse 125 is when the end-user goes into the system and
applies a previously used idea to a different problem or opportunity. An
Infrastructure Idea 130 is an idea that provides a change or enhancement
to the infrastructure shown in FIG. 8, which may result in modification
of one or another aspect of the implementation. It is this characteristic
of the invention that is the source of the name "autonomic", which is
understood in the present invention to mean self-correcting and
self-optimizing.

[0078]Conduits: The inputs to the system are channeled through a variety
of conduits 200. Conduits are the ways in which the community of
end-users (i.e. the employees and managers who comprise the enterprise)
is able to submit information into the system. For example, there may be
a web site 205 that is a secure submission forum which takes place on the
corporate Intranet. Another conduit may be Sametime/Instant Messaging
210. Instant messaging gives the user of the system the ability to submit
an idea, to comment on an idea, or interact with the system using an
instant messaging methodology that is able to mirror the functionality
available at the web site 205. Idea submissions may also be generated
Off-line 215 and sent by electronic mail in such a way as to provide the
end user the ability to submit an idea or interact with the system
remotely from a computer not directly connected to the system. For
example, an end-user could complete an idea submission form or response
form while on a plane and send it by electronic mail, perhaps even from
the airplane. Alternatively, submissions may be made by phone 220. There
are two types of phone submissions. First there is a phone submission
form which allows the end-user to speak into a voice-recognition system,
which interacts with the user to fill out the form. Secondly, the user
may also talk to a live operator who then subsequently dictates or types
the input into the system. There are may other conduits 225 that can be
set up for use with the system. Some of these conduits include dedicated
devices, kiosks, handhelds, and similar input devices evident to those
skilled in the art.

[0079]Display/exposure and Collaboration: Once the ideas have entered the
system through one of the conduits, they are then aggregated 305 at the
back end into one of several database options. The Innovation Submission
database 310 is a dedicated database, which tracks the innovation
submissions and all conversation strings surrounding them. The main site
500 is the front end for the IT portion of the infrastructure. On the
site there are several different paths and actions which the end-user
community can execute upon. One end-user can post 505 an idea or need on
the main site 500. One end-user submits another idea, going through one
of several conduits. Once the idea reaches the main site 500 it is open
for peer review and collaborative assessment 510. Collaboration 515 is a
key portion of the peer review and collaborative assessment 510, where
the end-user community has the ability to comment on the ideas submitted
by others, identify duplicates, submit enhancements, flag an idea for
intellectual property review and provide other useful information. Peer
voting or collaborative assessment included in 510 is where the community
is given the ability to weigh in on the value of the idea based on a set
of measures reflecting value to the enterprise. For example, measures
could include business value, technical merit, cultural value, and
general value. Ideas can also be judged based on the number of informal
implementers, a metric that is also collected by the system.

[0080]Rejection of a submission: The end-user community also has a voice
in rejecting 525 an idea. The reasons for rejection of an idea can
include: duplicate idea, inappropriate content, or other legitimate
reasons. Finally, a search engine 530 provides a methodology for the
community to navigate through a vast collection of both ideas and needs.
This search engine can pull from ideas and needs which are stored at the
main site 500 or, if connected, it can also draw from ideas available
externally.

[0081]Needs Management System: Substantially in parallel with main site
500 is the needs management system discussed above in connection with
FIG. 4A. Needs submission information can be handled in much the same
manner as innovation submissions to the point of placement in innovation
database 310 and supplied therefrom to the needs management section 8000.
Submitted solutions 8200 can also be handled in the same manner. As
discussed above, the invention provides for solution suggestion
generation 8300 from among the innovation included in the innovation
submission database 310 and also facilitates evaluation by
users/employees of both submitted solutions and generated suggestions, as
illustrated at 8500. Matches found or developed in this manner are then
output and handled, possibly with further development, in the manner of
innovation submissions. Validation of a match and further development
preferably can occur in parallel

[0082]Innovation Portfolio tracking: The electronic output 600 from this
site serves many purposes. Primarily, it can be used for evaluation
purposes or to document innovation performance. The output includes an
electronic file of all activity associated with a given idea or need. The
initially developed idea or need 605 may spark subsequent conversational
strings 610, which include all discussion and suggestions for enhancement
or modification of the idea. This information is recorded as text inputs.
Peer review or Collaborative Assessment ratings 615 include the results
from the collaborative assessments where members of the community
rate/vote/endorse/assess a given idea.

[0083]Selection of top ideas: At the selection stage 700, ideas are
selected for further management review, either by an automated analysis
of the results of peer review 710 over a period of time, or by selection
by certain members of the community who have been given authorization to
put ideas on a fast path 705. Preferably, peer review 710 includes three
status levels: peer voting selection, management review and informal
usage (e.g. the number of employees, departments or projects which
implement the submission, with or without further development); any of
which may be the basis for selection even if other status levels yield a
negative response to the submission.

[0084]End-user messaging: An electronic message back to the innovator 810,
when an idea has been selected for further management review, is an
important feedback component of the system. This component may be
satisfied by any of the methodologies of communicating with the end-user
or innovator. It could be via e-mail, the web site, phone, instant
messaging, etc.

[0085]IP Law Integration: Those ideas selected for further management
review are also entered into the enterprise's intellectual property (IP)
or Worldwise Patent Tracking System (WPTS) 900. Once the idea enters the
intellectual property system, IP lawyers and others with administrative
access to IP system are able to look at the ideas 905 and determine an
appropriate level of intellectual property protection. Following review
905, a decision may be made 910 whether disclosure of the idea should be
limited, or a formal invention disclosure 915 should be made. Other
designated members of the community can preferably also trigger an
intellectual property law review.

[0086]Innovation Portfolio Routing: In a development stage 1000, the first
step is to create a file called an "Innovation Portfolio" of selected
ideas 1005, which includes the key data. This file can include data from
each idea and its respective conversation strings. Once the necessary
data for an idea is aggregated, the idea is reviewed 1100 by a panel of
subject matter experts or other team deemed appropriate to review these
ideas. Then this team or another team 1200 is charged with prepping the
case and building a portfolio for the given idea or need. Upon completion
of prepping the case and building a portfolio, the review team 1200 would
be expected to do in initial analysis or assessment of the idea to
determine whether or not to go forward 1205. For example, following
completion of the portfolio preparation, if they realize that there is a
fatal flaw the idea can be killed. If the decision 1205 is to go forward
with the idea, a suitable presentation 1300 would then be made to process
owners (e.g. if the idea is for modification of a business process of the
enterprise) or other stakeholders for decision.

[0087]Once the stakeholders have had an opportunity to review the
feasibility and potential business impact of the idea they would make a
final go/no-go decision 1305 before going to the implementation stage.

[0088]The innovator and the review team will have developed a proposed set
of next steps for pursuing implementation. The stakeholders may commit to
developing and implementing the idea 2000, or they may decide that there
will be no immediate next steps taken 2005.

[0089]Two key components of the autonomic innovation infrastructure are
the Motivational Signature and the Innovation Profile discussed above.
The inputs 5005 for the innovation and motivational signature are
provided via the same conduits as ideas and needs. These inputs are the
responses to questions about the specific motivational and innovative
orientation of the individual user. The innovation signature diagnostic
tool 5010 analyzes the individual's innovative behavior in light of their
motivational and innovative preferences. The information collected from
the innovation signature diagnostic tool is then used to process 5015 the
individual's innovative signature. The innovative signature charts the
individual's innovative and motivational characteristics. The innovation
signature 5000 takes into consideration an individual innovator's
innovative interest, innovative strengths, innovative motivational
drivers, desired environment, desired infrastructure, desired management
structure, and other preferences.

[0090]An individuals motivational signature 5100 can be defined as those
motivational drivers that consistently lead the individual to perform
certain types of behavior. These can change over time, and consequently
the more responsive the motivational signature is to these changes the
more likely it is that the system will provide optimal behavioral
reinforcement and change. The innovation profile 5200 is the record of an
individuals innovative behavior over a period of time. A history of
preferences and profiles 5300 is a compilation of both the innovative and
motivational preferences and profiles of an employee. The combination of
the motivational signature 5100, innovation profile 5200, and history
5300 represent the individual's innovation signature 5000. This
information can be used for business intelligence to better understand
the drivers of innovation and to provide trend analysis of both behavior
and preferences.

[0091]The Innovation Pipeline Analyzer 6000, illustrated in greater detail
in FIG. 8A, includes a real-time Innovation Pipeline Dashboard 6100,
whose primary function is to analyze the pipeline of information flowing
through the enterprise's ecosystem at any given time. This can allow the
company to understand better if the pipeline is comprised of incremental,
versus evolutionary versus radical ideas. It also allows the company to
analyze their innovation pipeline based on any number of additional
metrics. The Innovation Pipeline Analyzer 6000 also includes historical
pipeline displays 6200, which allows the company to look back in time a
few months, or even a few years, to see what the pipeline has been at any
given time. A further component of the Innovation Pipeline Analyzer 6000
is the Innovation Portfolio 6500, which consists of all innovations,
including those ideas which were leveraged many years ago as well as
ideas that will still not be able to be leveraged for many years to come.
The portfolio can be characterized based on time horizons, on certainty,
and on those metrics which are of greatest concern to the organization.

[0092]The innovation pipeline analyzer provides a competitive benefit to
an organization by providing business intelligence data featuring
real-time and historical innovative behaviors. The information provided
by the innovation pipeline analyzer includes but is not limited to types
of innovation (e.g. radical, evolutionary, incremental), times to
implementation (e.g. short term, long term, futuristic), and the like.
This data can be used to provide information, in real-time or short time
intervals, on the types of innovations that are in process within the
organization and the state of development and progress of individual
projects or combinations of projects. The data can also be used to
provide historical tracking of innovative behavior and also used in the
aggregate to allow consideration and analysis of the overall innovation
portfolio of the organization.

[0093]The innovation pipeline analyzer thus provides access to information
concerning aspects of the innovation processes within an organization by
providing an opportunity for comparison of the historic organization
portfolio 6500 and current organization portfolio 6500' and the
historical innovation pipeline 6200 and current innovation pipeline 6200'
with objectives (e.g. manually or by use of a comparator or a combination
thereof as depicted at 7400) of the portfolio 7301 and the pipeline 7302.
For example, the innovation pipeline analyzer can report information in a
form for facilitating balancing the types of innovation, planning of
introduction of new products or improvements, planning of introduction of
new lines of products or services, sustaining growth and industry share
or position, coordinating related products or technologies and the like
as well as maintaining progress of development of projects and avoiding
extended periods when research and development innovation projects are
not brought to completion to enhance to revenues of the organization
particularly by updating of incentives 7420 and other possible managerial
adjustments.

[0094]More generally, the information from the innovation pipeline manager
7000 can also be used for critical decision making and management. In the
Automated pipeline manager, the managers or leaders of the organization
or departments therein can set specific objectives or goals. Once these
objectives or goals have been created, and input, the automated
innovation pipeline manager is able to compare the pipeline contents and
the objective or goal. If there is misalignment, the system will be
enabled to make (or recommend) predetermined changes within managerially
set parameters 7410 in order to obtain additional innovation or
innovative activity to correct the misalignment and more closely approach
the input objectives and goals. If the misalignment is outside given
parameters, the system will inform management 7420 in order to take
corrective action.

[0095]To provide such functions, the Automated Pipeline Manager 7000,
illustrated in greater detail in FIG. 8B, includes a Management
Innovation Pipeline Objective 7100. In order for management to determine
their innovation pipeline objective they must make a decision on what
metrics they need to focus. For example, if the management is focused on
innovations which will have an impact in the upcoming year, they may want
a pipeline which is heavy on short-term innovation, whereas if they are
concerned about the longer term health of the company they may prefer
building their pipeline of with innovations having five to ten year time
horizons. Corporations can also make a decision regarding where their
pipeline focuses. For example, if the company manufactures of heavy
machinery and consumer electronics, and consumer electronics becomes less
lucrative for the business, they will likely increase their objective for
heavy machinery innovations.

[0096]The Automated Pipeline Manager 7000 also includes a Management
Innovation Portfolio Objective 7200. Company management will also make
decisions about their innovation portfolio allocation. For example, if
they come to realize that there will likely be erosion of the consumer
electronics market, they will likely want to decrease their innovation
portfolio objective for consumer electronic innovations.

[0097]The pipeline/portfolio review process 7300 is an automatic system to
analyze the innovation pipeline to ensure its alignment with the
strategic portfolio objectives. Upon completion of the review, an
analysis 7400 is made to determine if the pipeline is aligned with the
portfolio objectives. The system subsequently sends an electronic update
7410 to management advising them of the alignment or lack of alignment.
This message can be sent or not sent, depending on threshold set by
management. If the pipeline is out of line with the portfolio objectives,
the system can automatically update 7420 the incentives and rewards to
drive those types of innovations necessary to bring the pipeline into
alignment with the portfolio objectives. This can be done as a manual
process, or can be driven automatically by the system.

[0098]In view of the foregoing, it is seen that the overall integrated
system provides for management and adaptive optimization of virtually all
aspects of the innovation process including maximization of motivation of
innovative activity and supports optimal deployment of employees within a
business organization in consideration of their talents and other
characteristics relevant to innovation as well as facilitating review and
evaluation of the innovation portfolio of a business and accommodating
needs submissions and their evaluation and matching to technology in the
business portfolio. It will be appreciated that the preferred form of the
autonomic management system in accordance with the invention provides not
only for handling and development of submissions in regard to innovations
or other types of submissions which may be of interest to the product of
an organization but submissions in regard to the management
infrastructure, as well, while providing adaptive modification of the
infrastructure through ongoing assessment, diagnostics and feedback which
may be autonomous within certain freely chosen parameters while requiring
human intervention (with or without accompanying recommendations) for
changes outside those parameters. Likewise, the motivational signature
management system adaptively provides optimal motivation for individuals
to engage in and complete particular desired behaviors, motivational or
otherwise, which is useful in and of itself while potentially improving
the performance of any management system in regard to innovation or any
other endeavor. Moreover, while an innovation signature (or signature for
any other type of performance criteria) may also be useful in and of
itself for supporting optimal deployment of an individual or employee
within an organizational structure for enhanced performance therein, is
also useful in combination with other systems of the invention such as to
enhance the adaptive behavior of the motivational signature management
system and/or the autonomic management system of the invention, as well.

[0099]While the invention has been described in terms of a single
preferred embodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the
invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope
of the appended claims.